A DEVINE TRAGEDY: 47. On Things that Appear Amiss

Tags

A Devine Tragedy, Abnegation, Anxiety, Arrogance, automatons, beings, bowels, brothers, Brothers of Personnel, Capitulation, Captain, chariots, Cloistered, Corona, corsairs, Craps, creative man, Creativity, dark of night, Dice, doom, dungeons, Education, equines, Ever Onward, Failure, Frederich Nietzsche, Gluttony, Human bodies, labor, loathing, lust, Machinations, Mail Call, Mankind, measuring devices, Mess hall, Microcomputers, misery, money changers, Money Lenders, Mortared Walls, Nepotism, Originality, Overman, Panoptics, Passion, Perseverance, Personnel, Petier Bruegel the Elder, Pharisees, Phenomena, Poker, Pride, Priest of Personnel, repeated spasms, revelry, searching, Secret Society, seeking, Self Respect, Shylocks, sisters, sloth, smoke, Snake Eyes, spouses, sweat, tax collectors, tears, the body, The Horses, the mind, the seducer, The Seven Somambulists, The State, Time Clocks, Toil, tools, triumph, trumpets, truth, underman, vengeance, vipers, walking wounded, wisdom, Wrath, Zombie

Jan Mandyn: A parital painting

 

“Behold the false ringmaster, for he is nothing. He sells his pride for a few days of status quo. He sells humanity for a secret handshake. He sleeps at the feet of his Board of Directors.”

Thus spoke Fred

The large hall became the central ring for a new circus;

a circus that Fred had never seen before.

Oh, there were big tubas playing

“Oom pah pah, Oom pah pah”

And there were clowns.

 

There was even the obligatory dog act and donkeys,

that leapt from a platform into a tank of water.

There were the trapeze artists, trained birds,

leaping frogs and other such acts.

All this was contained in a

very large tent erected

in this largest of halls

and the cave system

and passageways.

 

But the lighting was off kilter.

It did not center on the acts.

It centered on the audience.

The ringmaster; absent.

The circus dogs were Dobermans. Not brown Dobermans

but blue serge Dobermans. Foam dripped from

the corners of their mouths.

Their shadows, because of

the off kilter lighting,

are bigger than dogs.

The dogs seemed

alarmed at these

shadows; and leap

around trying

to avoid the

dark blobs

attached to

their feet.

 

The more they leap the more excited they became.

 

“Canines on the hunt are magnificent and noble animals. Hunting dogs lead themselves and pack dogs follow. Dogs in the circus are cute and, at times, unpredictable. Or at least they are trained to appear as though they are unpredictable. These dogs are neither cute, nor magnificent, nor trained, nor noble leaders. But they are unpredictable.”

Thus Spoke Fred

Tomorrow: “And the Band Played On”